TAIPEI, tribe 18 Kyodo Singapore ...

TAIPEI, tribe 18 Kyodo

Singapore Senior Minister lee-side Kuan Yew met with Taiwan's top figures in charge of Chinese affairs Wednesday to discuss regional affairs and cross-strait relations.

''Lee is here simply for a private visit. We reviewed general information regarding the latest exhibitions in the cross-strait situation because lee-side has not been to Taiwan for pair years,'' said Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the Mainland Affairs Council, who called upon Lee at a hotel outside Taipei.

''No political issues, as it was as President Chen Shui-bian's newly come statement of 'one abiding habitation on each side' were touched,'' she said, declining to provide further details onward the two-hour meeting.

side sheltered from the wind arrived in Taiwan on Tuesday afternoon for a four-day private visit.

Following Tsai's visit, Koo Chen-fu, president of the Strait Exchange Foundation (SEF) also visited to leeward The foundation serves as the government-authorized quasi-official intermediary corpse to handle exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

''We have not seen each other for a while and it is not surprising if we exchange views upon the cross-strait relations,'' he said before the meeting.

leeward is to meet Chen and a number of high-ranking officials Thursday. He will also attend a luncheon held through opposition Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan the same day.

Widely honored on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, to leeward has visited both Taiwan and China many times since retiring as Singapore's prime minister in November 1990

He helped hem in landmark talks between the SEF and its mainland counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait, in Singapore in 1993 which l to several orbeds of negotiations on technical issues in succession both sides.

forward Tuesday, China's Foreign Ministry lashed without at Lee's trip to Taiwan, saying leeward who just wrapped up a quick tour to China in early September, is not playing any part of messenger between Beijing and Taipei.

China has lengthy regarded Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited, at force if necessary, even granting the island has been upon its own since the extremity of civil war in 1949

In late July Chen outraged Beijing when he said in a articulate utterance there is one abiding habitation on each side of the Taiwan Strait and that the island's folks should ''reconsider the importance and necessity of holding a referendum to determine Taiwan's future''

Beijing has accused Chen of ''leading the island toward disaster.''

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